Don't Believe the Hype

A Masterpiece!

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I love the story writing and concepts, and even the idea behind it being dryly funny, but Burton is clearly struggling with control. Too square to be subversive and too lame to be funny, it's a fish-out-of-water macabre-comedy that's as pale as a man who sleeps in a coffin when compared to much better films (What We Do in the Shadows). A decent climax, nice gothic visuals, and Eva Green giving her all still can't bring life to this thing.

Fans (like me) of the original "Dark Shadows" TV series need to remember, this is not an episode of that series, or an original storyline or continuation of it. I think that's what most fans came into this looking for. It is instead (as most Burton films are) a tribute to, or more correctly a parody of, the series, and specifically a parody of the Barnabas Collins vampire storyline.Johnny Depp does the character justice for the material he is given. The actress who plays Dr. Julia Hoffman really does not: regretfully, she is no Grayson Hall and therefore doesn't bring the same air of mystery and near-foreboding to the part. Part of that may be due to the scripting though, and the comedic air which is brought to the film in scenes where it seems a bit out of place (for example, when Barnabas attacks a group of teenagers because he needs to feed). The actress who played Angelique also suffers from the same shortcomings (Lara Parker was much better in the role).The film is appropriately timed at the ending up at Widow's Hill, and in the beginning, but throughout suffers from uneven pacing and seemingly a bit confused direction. Word to all DS fans: Relax, it's a parody, have a bit of fun with it on a Friday night over your favorite beverage or two. Don't expect serious drama and you'll enjoy it fine.

As Hollywood movies get worse and worse, past legends lose as well their brilliance (except Spielberg). Here Tim sure doesn't reach the levels of his 80s – 90s works but it's a bit better than his more recent works… I understand that it's a TV show adaptation but the idea of medieval characters getting out of sync with our modern technological time is the idea of our french top movie comedy « Les Visiteurs » ! At least, it's funny and Deep is unusually good with his noble manners ! I really like how the mansion was crazily Gothic, the 70s fashion and songs. With this great soundtrack, it erases the total void of Danny's score (do you remember the main theme ?) "Rorsaach" and Michelle was astounding all the more it has been ages that I haven't seen her and Green (who looked like Tim's past girlfriend especially when she did the martian girl) was a thousand time more hot there than in the "Sin City" sequel ! On the contrary, Miller, Carter and above all Moretz are just insipid ! Beyond this, there is really a story problem as it keeps repeating the same idea, the same dialogs (Green wants Deep as a lover and Deep isn't agree) and the violent finale is just a very cheap way to conclude this drama !

Dark shadows is just absolutely terrible, it is muddled, BORING, poorly acted to be honest, and a complete waste of talent. Tim Burton is obviously a very talented actor, so I don't know what kinda whacked up stuff he was on when he did this movie, but even if he was that's still no excuse for delivering this trash to us. I'm not a humongous Depp fan, but he has been good in previous films, he was NOT in this one, he is annoying and way too over the top here. This film is not funny, when it tries to get out a laugh, it falls flat every time. Helena carter is lazy and lackluster here too. And I usually like Michelle Pfeiffer, but come on Michelle, you deserve better material than this! The events are boring and the plot i.e. uninteresting and the script is very lazy and phoned in. 1/10.